But what's been left out of this thread, it seems, is the very frank admission about what happens to these shows after they are offloaded (ie: NOTHING) and that's a little unfair to those who've been following along for all this time.

Unfair to the people reading this thread? You're complaining that the thread will never be resolved? Seriously? This from the person who foisted the rebus thread on Happy Hour?

Tim has created a thread which is useful for anyone who is struggling with a lack of time to watch their shows and a limited amount of disk space.

He doesn't owe the people who are reading this thread anything.

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"The capacity of human beings to disappoint me is never ending." -- Ereth

Of course he doesn't owe anyone anything. I don't expect him to change a single thing, or explain anything to anyone.

But this thread's in the wild now. It has, and will, attract all sorts of perspectives and opinions. Even mine. I'm really not sure why you seem to object to this.

It's the nature of a discussion forum. This is a ten year old thread, and after all this time, after all the suggestions and comments, the meticulous explanation of the implemented "solution," we've just heard from Mr. McKelley that he's not even aware if she's actually watching any of the offloaded shows.

I'd call that progress.

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There has been lots of new information. The thread will be handy when I set up my file server.

Look, I'm sorry to take it out on you personally. I'm just fed up with the general contempt I see on this board for spouses who aren't on TCF themselves, and the contrary attitude. If someone asks "how can I do this with [this set of equipment] then someone else says how cheap it would be to buy something newer. But in the threads where someone is buying the newer stuff, they whine that the OP is spending too much money. What's wrong with actually, you know, being helpful, and giving people a straight answer? Quaint and old-fashioned, I know.

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Meh. Apology accepted and all, but let's be adults here. The wheels of the bus go 'round and 'round. Everyone has an agenda, even you. Yes, you've got a contrary attitude (and contempt) for plenty of things too.

I'm not scolding anyone, I am participating in a public discussion. After ten years, some other perspectives might (and probably should) emerge. This is healthy discourse.

Carry on.

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Meh. Apology accepted and all, but let's be adults here. The wheels of the bus go 'round and 'round. Everyone has an agenda, even you. Yes, you've got a contrary attitude (and contempt) for plenty of things too.

I'm not scolding anyone, I am participating in a public discussion. After ten years, some other perspectives might (and probably should) emerge. This is healthy discourse.

Carry on.

FWIW, I'm right there with ya Fof. I've known Tim's wife had a "problem" for years now. I've alluded to her hoarding more than once, and let's face it, that's all this really is. She's running on fear and her decisions are made out of fear. She uses the exact same "logic" that all the Hoarders on the TV show use. Saying she may "need them in her old age" is just more of her kidding herself.

Granted, it's a fairly harmless variation of the hoarding gene, but let's not kid ourselves and pretend there is actually any solution for what is going on. The Hoard will simply continue to grow. If it were my wife, I'm not sure what I'd do... From watching Hoarders on TV, it would seem they get VERY upset if you try to stop them, so it's quite possible, I'd simply turn a blind eye and do exactly what Tim is doing... Marriages are funny that way.

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FWIW, I'm right there with ya Fof. I've known Tim's wife had a "problem" for years now. I've alluded to her hoarding more than once, and let's face it, that's all this really is. She's running on fear and her decisions are made out of fear. She uses the exact same "logic" that all the Hoarders on the TV show use. Saying she may "need them in her old age" is just more of her kidding herself.

Granted, it's a fairly harmless variation of the hoarding gene, but let's not kid ourselves and pretend there is actually any solution for what is going on. The Hoard will simply continue to grow. If it were my wife, I'm not sure what I'd do... From watching Hoarders on TV, it would seem they get VERY upset if you try to stop them, so it's quite possible, I'd simply turn a blind eye and do exactly what Tim is doing... Marriages are funny that way.

That's why the marriage vows say "for better or for foibles and eccentricities".

Oh, Tim, Tim. How naive you are. My husband likes to save old TV series and movies too. Even he is unsure how much he has, but he is checking right now to see. He thinks he ought to know how much he has. (Waits while he looks) Looks like about 6 terabytes right now, with another terabyte in digitized comics. He has plans for a 15 terabyte Drobo very soon, holding 5 drives of 3 terabytes each, set up to tolerate either a single or multiple drive failures - a lot depends on how much it will actually hold set up to tolerate multiple drive failures. It will store 11 terabytes at single drive failure, so I wonder if it will hold it all set for multiple.

I don't get this thing with recording massive amounts of TV. I pretty much go through my DVR at the end of the week and delete most of what's on it. A few things might stay 2-3 weeks, but I either really want to watch them, or they are a goner. I just moved from a Comcast DVR of unknown size to an MCE machine with 3TB, and right now I need to do a cleanout. I have 75GB of shows on it (Comcast HD). TiVo is likely my next step in the DVR world, and I don't expect to get about maybe 10% at MOST on an XL4. Mainly I just like the disk space so I can let the thing go nuts and not worry about it filling up if I'm away for a week or two.

OTOH, my mom seems to have issues keeping her Comcast DVR clean. It's a 500GB DCX3400, and it's always teetering on the edge of not having enough space. I don't get it. If you're not going to watch it, delete it. I think the TiVo S2 that preceded that one was chock full when it died. Did she miss anything on it? Nope.

If you have the resources, why not?
It saves you from having to pay for Netflix or iTunes if you ever want to watch shows after they have originally aired.
Sure, you could probably watch them online for free, but who wants to watch TV on a computer screen from an online source that most likely forces you to watch ads?

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I have plenty of shows that I want to watch but just don't have the time to keep up with all of them. It's simply not possible to watch 40+ hours of TV a week so I watch about 20 shows at any given time. When I finish all episodes of a show, I add one of the backlogged shows into the mix. Why should I give up watching a show I enjoy just because I can't watch it in real time when I have the ability to have that show waiting for me when I'm good and ready. That's basically the point of having a DVR, watch when YOU want to not when the networks want you to. And in your case, if you aren't going to watch it, why are you recording it in the first place?

My wife continues to remind me that she needs me to write up some pyTiVo instructions so she won't have to rely on my help with it.

Last night after my son went to sleep I stay up until almost midnight writing part 1 of some 2-part instructions.

Part 1 is queueing shows to transfer from TiVos to T:\HoldingArea. (That's the folder pyTiVo is configured to move the shows to.)

Part 2, which I'm working on right now, while my wife and son are at a Valentine's party, is how to move shows from T:\HoldingArea to her various shares.

It all sounds simple, but I'm including screen shots and writing it in lay lingo to somebody who doesn't know how to use Windows. (i.e. I can't assume she has any windows knowledge.) At least this is how she told me to write it, because she has no confidence in her knowledge of Windows, but to be honest she has some experience with it. But just minimal experience. I'm not sure if she even knows how to rename files or folders, or delete or insert new folders, for example.

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If you have the resources, why not?
It saves you from having to pay for Netflix or iTunes if you ever want to watch shows after they have originally aired.
Sure, you could probably watch them online for free, but who wants to watch TV on a computer screen from an online source that most likely forces you to watch ads?

It's not really the same at all. A DVR is not the be-all-end-all to "on demand" video.

Watch stuff on TV, enjoy it, and delete it. I just did my weekly cleanout, and I'm down to 2 hours on my DVR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiskeyTango

I have plenty of shows that I want to watch but just don't have the time to keep up with all of them. It's simply not possible to watch 40+ hours of TV a week so I watch about 20 shows at any given time. When I finish all episodes of a show, I add one of the backlogged shows into the mix. Why should I give up watching a show I enjoy just because I can't watch it in real time when I have the ability to have that show waiting for me when I'm good and ready. That's basically the point of having a DVR, watch when YOU want to not when the networks want you to. And in your case, if you aren't going to watch it, why are you recording it in the first place?

Because if you keep getting farther behind, you're never going to actually watch them. At some point, you have to realize it's pointless, and just delete them. I pretty much use a 2-3 week rule. If I haven't found it interesting by that point, I'm not going to, and I nuke it.

The point of a DVR is to time shift and zap commercials, not create a massive stockpile of TV shows. So that tonight's ep of Finding Bigfoot, I can watch it tomorrow or the next day or the next. But if I don't watch it by next weekend, I can be pretty sure I don't really want to watch it, and I should probably delete it (I will watch it).

In our most recent example - we relocated to another city & state. I stayed behind selling the house and packing while hubby started a new position and worked for a few months while also scouting for new homes to purchase.

We have multiple shows we like - so I archived them via Tivo - and when the Tivo got full - I archived them over to an external HDD on the network. We are slowly but surely catching up, but it will take months as he only has the time to watch 1-2 shows a day at the most.

Meanwhile, we'll never have to watch a commercial. It's all time shifted for as long as we like. Periods of the year contain big black outs in shows/networks we enjoy - so we'll have plenty saved up to fill the gaps.

Sometimes we go away on business or take vacations too - another need to archive shows. Sometimes only one of us wants a show and the other is not interested - so we have our "own" individual recordings as well - saved for use as we see fit, at a later time.

Get it now?

And if the shows ever do completely run out on the Tivo - we also have Netflix.
Bottom line = we HATE LIVE TV and almost never ever ever ever watch it - due to commercials.

In our most recent example - we relocated to another city & state. I stayed behind selling the house and packing while hubby started a new position and worked for a few months while also scouting for new homes to purchase.

We have multiple shows we like - so I archived them via Tivo - and when the Tivo got full - I archived them over to an external HDD on the network. We are slowly but surely catching up, but it will take months as he only has the time to watch 1-2 shows a day at the most.

Meanwhile, we'll never have to watch a commercial. It's all time shifted for as long as we like. Periods of the year contain big black outs in shows/networks we enjoy - so we'll have plenty saved up to fill the gaps.

Sometimes we go away on business or take vacations too - another need to archive shows. Sometimes only one of us wants a show and the other is not interested - so we have our "own" individual recordings as well - saved for use as we see fit, at a later time.

Get it now?

And if the shows ever do completely run out on the Tivo - we also have Netflix.
Bottom line = we HATE LIVE TV and almost never ever ever ever watch it - due to commercials.

It's not really the same at all. A DVR is not the be-all-end-all to "on demand" video.

Not the be all and and all, but CLOSE.

Yes, I have used Cable's On Demand from my Tivo and appreciate it being there.. But I can't skip commercials on that.

IF I had infinite storage, I'd just record everything with buffers on both ends. Recording MORE than you can watch ends up giving you new shows all summer long, where there are fewer new shows onů (More in the past ~10 years than previously, but still less than during the main first run season.. and most of the summer stuff is reality, which some [not me] hate.)

SOME things I record for keeps.. not much, but I just like having a HUGE variety of what to pick.. I have "gotten into" something I had a season or more of, then caught up on.